Gregory LaBerge, Scientific Director and Bureau Commander, Denver Police Department
NIJ Conference 2010
June 14-16

This player requires Adobe's Flash Player Exit Notice

Cold Case Best Practices

Gregory LaBerge, Scientific Director and Bureau Commander, Denver Police Department
NIJ Conference 2010
June 14-16

Gregory LaBerge: What we do is on Friday afternoons — this is regarding cold cases — when we have a group of DNA samples that are going to be going into CODIS, we inform the cold case sergeant who runs the nine detectives that these cases are going into CODIS on Monday. That allows them some prep time to pull the cases out and get them ready, because we know roughly 42 percent, so maybe 4 out of 10, will get a hit on CODIS. So they already have the cases pulled out, they review the cases so they're aware of what cases are going into CODIS, so it's a refresher. And then when the process starts on Monday, when the profiles are uploaded and then the hits come, they're already prepped and ready to run on finding the suspect if he's out of custody.

It's a very rigorous schedule, so everybody's programmed into that schedule — the detectives, the scientists and the fugitive team that goes out and looks for the suspects. So everybody's aware of it, it's how we do business now, and that's another big lesson, is that when you run these cold cases, they're not the exception, it's actually the rule as to how you handle all cases then. So what we're doing is we're taking the lessons from cold case and we're applying it into even our routine casework, where we let the Sex Crimes Bureau know we're uploading cases or Homicide Bureau so the same process happens and that our goal has always been to change how we do business with a DNA-aware police department. And so it's changed how we do it, and that is how we do it all the time.

One of the things you see in all fields — in medicine, in law enforcement, in just anywhere, business is eagles, right? People want to be recognized for that they do, and there seems to be some times where people are more, it's more important about them then it is the mission. And what I have to say in Denver is that we've got a group of people that have been selected that are there for the mission, for what we call the right reasons. And when you're around people who care about stuff like you do, you just like each other naturally, right? It's not that I have to force myself to like the chief or the D.A., I just like them because they're the same kind of people that I am. And I care about victims and I care about crime and I care about doing my job for the mission, what the police department stands for. And so when you bring those kind of people together, and we're lucky in Denver, we have a great environment, great place to live, it attracts quality people. And so it comes back to what my chief taught me, and that is the right people need to be selected at the right times for the right reasons and given the right mission, and I think if you follow that, you can't fail.